Page 12 of Pucked Around and Found Out

She's just like her father and brother, a fucking snake.

“I see you.”

The resignation in her voice should satisfy me, should fill the emptiness with something resembling victory. She knows there's no escape from this. I'll be the last thing she sees before I send her straight to hell where she belongs.

“Make him feel the pain you felt.”

The words hit me like a physical blow.

She wants me to hurt her instead.

Wants to take her brother's place.

Wants me to carve into her flesh so Masen can feel even a fraction of the agony that's been eating me alive for nearly two years.

My breath catches in my throat.

It makes me sick, physically fucking sick to admit this, but I respect her for it. For sitting there watching without flinching. For offering herself up as a sacrifice.

The Toren I thought I knew would have been begging by now. Screaming. Breaking.

But this version? She's steel wrapped in skin.

“Caspian.” My voice sounds strange to my own ears, hollow, distant. “Bring the cart.”

“Xaden—”

“The fucking cart, now!”

The roar tears from somewhere primal and violent. If he doesn't have the stomach to watch this, he can get the fuck out. But this is happening whether he likes it or not.

The warehouse falls into deathly silence, so still you could hear a heartbeat from across the room as Cas wheels the cart to my side and stands there like a statue.

Toren doesn't move.

Doesn't take her eyes off me as I select the scalpel from the array of instruments.

I reach out and glide the tip along her cheek, not hard enough to cut. Just enough to feel the warmth of her skin against cold steel.

I'm taunting her.

Testing her.

Waiting for the moment she breaks.

I need it.

Need to hear her beg and plead for her worthless life. Need to see fear replace that goddamn understanding in her eyes.

But she just stares at me with that look, that fucking look that says she sees straight through to my rotten core and somehow doesn't hate me for it.

It pisses me off more than anything else could.

“It's okay,” she whispers, so quietly only I can hear.

The words detonate something inside me.

It's okay?